14 DAY TRIAL // After Valve's Gabe Newell had nothing but good things to say about the Origin digital distribution service from Electronic Arts two executives from that company talked about the respectful competition between the two companies.
Peter Moore, who is the new Chief Operations Officer working at Electronic Arts, has told GamesIndustry.biz that, “I’m not sure we’re taking them on; we’re a great compliment to that business.”
The same attitude was also seen in comments from Jens Uwe Intat, the leader of the EA Europe, which added, “I don’t even know if Steam Vs. Origin is a proper battle. There’s a space for Steam, there’s a space for Origin, there’s a space for third party retailers. Both pure retailers and traditional retailers that are entering the digital distribution space.”
The executive believes that there is enough space in the digital distribution market to accommodate more than just two players and that all players will benefit from the competition which is developing between them, with more choice and lower prices being the most visible results.
Uwe Intat also believes that the very nature of the video game industry creates situations where companies need to cooperate and compete at the same time depending on the situation.
The two EA executives talked about how Origin allows the company to create a better interface with the customer and restated that a number of EA made titles were removed from Steam because that service did not allow this type of interaction.
Origin will be used to deliver exclusive functionality to such upcoming titles like Battlefield 3, the first person shooter from DICE, and Star Wars: The Old Republic, the MMO from BioWare.
Neither of the two games will be offered on Steam.
In the long term EA says that it will add more social functionality to Origin, making it more than a simple digital distribution platform.